


Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions

by Pistol



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:05:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22041517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pistol/pseuds/Pistol
Summary: In New Hampshire a boy isn't born and Mary and Jonathan Jensen bring home a baby sister to their daughter.
Kudos: 12





	Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how much of this I originally posted. There's like 53k of random bits of fic in this universe but about 1/3 of that is story notes and another 1/3 is random scenes with no lead-up. Gonna play it safe and post up until the first brick of story notes.

In New Hampshire a boy isn't born and Mary and Jonathan Jensen bring home a baby sister to their daughter. 

*

It's the summer of '06 when Roque finally catches up with an informant outside of Waziristan. He's not alone when Roque finds him, and his company could _never_ be mistaken for willing. Roque doesn't bother with pretending to consider his options. It's not the first time he's taken justice into his own hands, and it won't be the last. He regrets nothing. Later that day, there is no technical malfunction that destroys the CCTV footage of the informant’s death, and no one can look the other way when the gruesome video hits the news. 

Newspaper headlines all over the world debate Roque's actions and call him everything from a monster to a hero. The petty name-calling means nothing until a general starts in on it. He calls Roque a _civilian_, and Roque suddenly discovers that words can in fact still hurt him.

Just like that, Roque loses his job.

*

Jolene slowly becomes a ghost, lingering by her phone and desperately hoping to hear it ring, bringing her news. Any news. _Any_ proof that her husband is still alive. 

Lengthy months of no contact and wondering if Pooch is alive is _not_ something that gets easier with time. There's no way to to talk to someone halfway around the world, well, not when they do what Pooch does. There's just lonely months and coming home to an empty home and a silent phone. Waiting. Wondering. _Hoping._

After the third week of falling asleep drunk and lonely on the couch Jolene decides she needs a change. She takes some extra shifts at work. 

And then she takes some more. 

She fills her time with work, work, work until the other doctors start giving her pitying looks and the bunk beds in the hospital's crash room are more familiar than the bed in her own house.

When Pooch comes home to an empty house, a ring, and an envelope dated two months prior; he can't find it in himself to blame Jolene. He can't even find it in him to be surprised, so he signs the papers and adds her wedding band next to his on his chain.

Just like that, Pooch loses his wife.

*

They lose two team members at the compound in Bolivia. Clay, Pooch, and Cougar somehow manage to drag themselves and eight of the children out. 

In the end, they lose the kids too. 

The hot metal of the wreckage burns and sticks to Cougar’s skin when he tries to move it, and fire licks at his hands until the skin cracks and bleeds. No one stops him.

Before they leave the crash site to run, hide, and still be alive while so many others aren't; Cougar feeds the fire his name, rank, blood type, and serial number along with something that feels abstract, but just as vital.

When Cougar works out a system of radio clicks to communicate Clay just sighs and tells him not to let it fuck with their plans to get Max. Cougar tips his hat and Clay gives him a steady look before he leaves Cougar to his silence.

When Cougar wakes up in the jungle with a scream on his lips and a hand on his rifle Pooch and Clay are smart enough not to engage him. In a run down motel two hundred miles away, there is nothing in the dark of the night to snap Cougar back from his memories. There is nothing to make enough noise to chase his ghosts away. There's only him, a ceiling fan, and ten TV channels full of static.

Just like that, Cougar loses his voice. 

And maybe he loses a little of his mind as well.

*

There is no _team_ anymore. Just three men who limped out of a jungle smelling like smoke.

There is no Ramírez at Clay's back, watching out for the others when Clay can't be bothered to think outside of the mission. There is no Morales tapping away at his computer and picking fights with Cougar or Pooch when bored. There's only scar tissue in the form of three men with guns who have no country and no hope. 

Clay can't even begin to figure out how to fix that. So they stay low. They head to the closest city they can get lost in, and they lose themselves in it. 

Perhaps more than they should.

Pooch gets a shitty hotel room on the west end and fixes cars part-time at a local garage when he isn't drinking. Cougar gets a shitty hotel room on the east side and... well, Clay isn't sure what Cougar does or how he pays for his room. What's worse, Clay can't find it in himself to care. 

So Clay stays in the middle of them, gambling, fighting, and drinking as he sees fit. And when he can't afford a room for the night, he knows either Pooch or Cougar has a floor he can crash on as long as he doesn't try to make Cougar talk or Pooch stop looking at pictures of that pretty doctor who left him all those years ago.

Just like that, Clay loses his team, and he doesn't even notice.

**Author's Note:**

> Was previously posted, then taken down. Now it's back up. Beware the errors and typos, I suspect the files I found on my old hard drive are the pre-beta versions.  
Please don't steal any of my silly stories and change some names around and then try to sell them as books on Amazon or I'm gonna have to take everything down again.


End file.
